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Echo
Portrayed by Eliza Dushku, Echo is the main character of Dollhouse. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with identities, personalities, skills, and memories in order to be sent into the world on engagements. Between engagements they live in the Dollhouse with no memory of their pasts or knowledge of their futures. In this child-like state Echo begins to become self-aware and to search for answers about who she is. Before Echo was recruited as a Doll, her name was Caroline Farrell. A file held by Adelle DeWitt suggests that Caroline's past was "a mess." After a 5-year tenure with the Dollhouse, it is promised that this will be taken care of. Caroline expresses her intent to "make a difference" and refers to a female figure in her life. They allude to the consequences of something Caroline has done or failed to do in an attempt to make a difference, which appears to be the mess DeWitt is using to pressure Caroline into signing on as a doll. Not much more is known about these details at this time. In Echoes, Echo's life as Caroline is revealed. She was a student at Freemont College, where she tried to stop animal experimentation in the Rossum lab. While video taping caged animals with her boyfriend, they were caught by security and her boyfriend killed in the attempt to escape. This led to DeWitt finding Caroline and offering her a position as an Active. Character development In the series premiere "Ghost"In the original pilot, "Echo", Paul Ballard gains possession of a picture showing a sorority girl called Caroline, a clue Alpha left to aid his search for the Dollhouse. After Adelle DeWitt finds out about the picture, she sends Echo on an engagement to get rid of Paul. Paul realizes that Echo looks exactly like Caroline. Pretending to be looking for a missing sister, Echo tries to find out how much he knows about the Dollhouse, but she gets mad and has to shoot him. Surprisingly, Paul survives and Echo heads off to "finish the job" in the hospital, but gets stopped by Boyd. It remains unclear why she didn't kill Paul although she had the necessary knowledge imprinted, and she starts to wonder about the name "Caroline" in her wiped state. Echo faces two engagements: one as a dream date, and one as an expert hostage negotiator. She finds herself in danger when a client decides to hunt her down in "The Target" to see if she deserves the right to live. Echo is regarded as one of "the best" Actives in the Dollhouse's possession, and is very popular with clients. However, Echo, like Alpha before her, is a very peculiar Doll in that she is able to work outside the parameters or her programming, to defy imprinting, and to carry residual memories from her imprinted state when inactive. While drugged with psychedelic drugs in "The Target," Echo, in the personality of Jenny, begins to see apparitions of past personalities - including the original Caroline - despite the fact that these personalities are supposed to have been "wiped" clean. From the encounter with Richard Connell in the same episode, she learns his mantra "shoulder to the wheel" and its accompanying gesture, slapping one's shoulder; in her inactive state, she echos his gesture. Despite being imprinted with a permanent trust in and dependence on Boyd, when he asks her "Do you trust me?", she turns it around on him and asserts herself, asking the same of him. In the next episode, "Stage Fright," Echo and new Active Sierra begin to develop a friendship in the confines of the Dollhouse, and there are signs of this when they encounter one another as their imprinted personalities, Jordan and Audra. When Jordan encounters Boyd, as well as Sierra's handler, Joe Hearn, she quickly voices her dislike and distrust of him; as Echo and Sierra once again, Echo shakes her head at Sierra to not speak to her in the presence of Sierra's handler, due to that residual distrust. Boyd and Dr. Saunders discuss Echo's unique brilliance, having found a more effective and radical means of fulfilling her mission outside the confines of her imprint, and worry that being too good might not be a good thing for her. Echo's friendship has now extended to Victor and the three dolls have been observed to eat together regularly, a event that Topher dismisses as instinctual herding patterns. Her new friends were put in danger in "Man on the street" when Victor was accused of raping Sierra. It was ultimately proven by Boyd and possibly Echo as well (who had noted that Sierra was crying a lot before going to sleep) that the true culprit was Sierra's handler. In this episode, she also displayed compassion and concern for her friends when she provided information to the Dollhouse staff on Sierra's situation, and listened to Victor when he was confused by the Dollhouse staff's motivation behind questioning him. She even asked frequently where Victor had been taken during Boyd's plan, showing concern for his safety. Also in this episode, she was sent to kill Paul, but due to an unknown person secretly grafting information onto her imprint, she told him the Dollhouse was real (and there is more than one) and told him to find the truth of its purpose. Engagements Notes & References Category:Characters Category:Main characters Category:Actives